Cluedo
by DrWorm
Summary: Remus has some issues, and Harry gets a Clue. Where's Professor Plum when you need him?


Cluedo=Clue for us Americans.

"When you were grown up you only feared, well, logical things. Poverty. Illness. Being found out. At least you weren't mad with terror because of something under the stairs. The world wasn't full of arbitrary light and shade. The wonderful world of childhood? Well, it wasn't a cut-down version of the adult one, that was certain. It was more like the adult one written in big heavy letters. Everything was… _more_. More _everything_." – Terry Pratchett, _Hogfather  
_

Cluedo  


"I say it was… Miss Scarlet with the dagger in the ballroom."

Remus smiled apologetically at Harry. "I'm afraid not. I've got the dagger card." He held the suspect merchandise out at arms' length for his opponent's careful scrutiny.

Harry pursed his lips upward and blew his bangs away from his forehead in clear irritation. "This game really works better with more than two people, you know." Remus shrugged as he tucked the intently perused card back into his hand.

"No one else is around. And this was the only game I happened to save from my parents' house that still has all the pieces." With a distant sort of agitation, he ran his thumb across the small stack of cards he held, producing a dull ripping sound. "And you said you were bored…"

"It's all right; I'm only trying to give you a hard time," Harry replied with a preoccupied quirk of his lips and pulled himself forward from where he lay comfortably on his belly in front of their tiny playing field to peer into the battered cardboard storage box Remus had tugged out of a dusty case pushed far to the back of his closet. It was filled with the sort of childish household detritus that naturally gravitates to the boxes of frequently used board games: a few old pencil stubs, scraps of torn and crumpled paper emblazoned with bizarre game-related code, old bubblegum wrappers still coated with the sheen of twenty year old sugar crystals. Harry could even see the corner of an old and much-abused Chocolate Frog card sticking out beneath the rules packet. He grinned a little at the way this piece of wizards' flotsam and jetsam had insinuated itself so easily into such thoroughly Muggle territory.

"My turn, then," Remus said, plucking the die from the middle of the board and shaking it in his cupped palm. Harry watched him fondly; it was nice to have someone to spend time with, someone who would suffer through a fairly pointless old game just to try to relieve Harry's own boredom. He was still adjusting to some of the little things, like calling his one-time professor by his given name, as well as to some of the bigger things, like spending time at 12 Grimmauld Place without Sirius. And it was clear to Harry that Remus was also adjusting, if the way he was so often startled by Harry's presence was any indication; it made him feel better in an odd way to know that he and Remus were still tiptoeing around one another, testing their respective boundaries. In its own way, their tentativeness reassured Harry that Sirius had not been forgotten at all in the year since his death.

While Remus rolled and dutifully moved his game piece, Harry idly busied himself with pulling out the maverick Chocolate Frog card, reasoning pragmatically that he ought to at least see whether it was one that he didn't have. But as he lifted the card, an old and ragged-edged piece of parchment came with it, temporarily adhered to the cheapish laminate of the cardstock. Harry picked it up curiously, as it didn't look like any of the other scrap paper that had been left with the game; it was smooth and free of creases, except where it had been folded in half, and the writing inside was large, crafted with a child's laborious control in vibrant red crayon. It looked almost like a letter. He read the first sentence and drew a quick gasp of breath through his teeth in a sharp hiss that caused Remus to look up from where he'd been ruminating upon the strategies of his next guess. "Harry? Is something wrong?"

Harry peered guiltily over the top of the paper, his eyes round as the rims of a pair of teacups. He licked his dry lips as his eyes flickered back to the startlingly heavy letters that had come together to make up a very disconcerting sentence: _Hello, my name is Remus Lupin I am 7 and a harf years old and I am a WerWolf and I have to make confeshun. _When he looked back, he saw that Remus' face had become tight and emotionless. "I…" he coughed and held out the childish letter. "Remus? I, um… do you want…?"

"Well," Remus' voice was cold and clipped. "I had forgotten all about that." He gestured to Harry to keep the piece of parchment. "Since you've found it, you might as well read all of it."

With a worried purse of his lips, Harry began to go back to the paper, but found himself tripping over the connotation of one of the words. "'Confession?'" He asked carefully, trying to avoid Remus' eyes as he wasn't entirely sure what all this was about.

"Yes," Remus nodded with a bitter little smile. "Yes, 'confession.' My mother was Catholic, you see." He shrugged and lifted one hand to his mouth to worry at a hangnail. "I never practiced, but… I suppose I picked up the general idea well enough."

"Oh," was all Harry could think of to say in response, and, after a few moments of uncomfortable silence, he turned his attention back to the paper and began to read:

_Hello, my name is Remus Lupin I am 7 and a harf years old and I am a WerWolf and I have to make confeshun. Professor Pioden who teaches me maths and reading and jography—_

Harry paused. "Where did you go to school?" Remus blinked distractedly.

"School?" He clucked his tongue gently. "You think I was actually allowed to go to school before Hogwarts? No," he shook his head, "After I was bitten I had a series of… private tutors." Harry nodded as he processed this piece of information.

_—he somtimes comes to my bed at night and lies next to me even though I know he has his own bed and mine is too small to fit both of us proparly anyway. He rubs up a gainst me and touchs me in funny places and I don't really like it but he says I'm not to tell Mum or Da because if I did he would have to leave and people would know I was bad and I'd never be able to go to school to learn to be a wizzard so even though it feels rong I don't tell The End._

Harry reread the chaotic testimony over twice, feeling more disturbed with each repetition but trying to put off having to say anything to Remus. Finally, though, he knew sitting and gaping silently wasn't going to do either of them any good, and so he pushed himself up onto his knees and again held out the paper. "Is this all… true?" Harry looked up and was further disconcerted by the way Remus stared fixedly down at the floor, avoiding his eyes. He tried to keep his voice free of bewilderment and shock when he asked a second time. "Is it?"

"I never told anyone, Harry. Please understand that."

"But… but, everything you wrote…" The paper crinkled roughly beneath Harry's fingertips, and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to rip Remus' childhood admissions to unintelligible shreds.

"Yes… God, you know, I'd completely forgotten about that little note." The small, sad smile Remus aimed at the end-table across the room only made Harry even more uncomfortable; he could feel acutely the private trauma he had unwittingly intruded upon. "I suppose putting it to parchment made me feel a bit better at the time." He tapped one of the game cards thoughtfully against his lower lip. "And then I put it in the Cluedo box, thinking that there was always a chance…" Remus shook his head, loosening several strands of grey-streaked hair that fell untidily across his line of vision. Despite the physical indicators of age, Harry had never seen his former professor looking so thoroughly lost and child-like. "Before I was bitten, you see… my parents liked to play board games with me." He bit his lower lip. "But not after."

"I'm sorry," Harry whispered, but Remus was already waving one of his hands wearily, rejecting Harry's apology immediately.

"No, no, no. For heaven's sake, _I'm_ the one who should be saying he's sorry." Remus stretched forward and gently took the brittle paper from Harry's hands. Harry was relieved to be rid of it. "Of course this isn't your fault, of course you have nothing to do with any of it, and of course you aren't responsible for my well-being." Remus' eyes flickered over the words that he had long-ago carved so deeply into the dark paper with the old wax of one of his discarded crayons. Then, with exaggerated carelessness, he began to tear the paper into halves, then quarters, then sixteenths; he tore until he was no longer able to rip through the thickly stacked hide of the pile of partitioned paper, just as Harry had envisioned doing himself. He held the squares for a moment, studying them as if trying to translate the fragments of words and letters that still remained. Finally, he lifted his arms and let all the little pieces fall; teased by the air's invisible fingers, they seemed to hang weightless in the still air of the living room, reminiscent of the autumn that was fast approaching and the brown leaves that would be shed as heavy as rain. They settled into a fan-shaped pattern on top of the carpet, and Remus idly pushed a few of them around into new patterns. "I had not intended for you to know about that part of my life," he said with a quiet but fierce kind of control that made Harry slightly nervous.

"I… it doesn't bother me. I mean," Harry bit his lower lip, "I mean, I don't… I would never…"

"… think less of me?" Remus finished with a sardonic little smile. "No, of course you wouldn't. That doesn't mean that I ever wanted to have to share this with you."

"But…"

Remus shook his head and rubbed his hand over his calf, smoothing down his well-worn slacks and repeating the motion even when the cloth seemed wholly free of wrinkles. "No. No, Harry, I'm sorry. It's not something that an adult should ever place upon the shoulders of a child, even by accident." He then turned his face from Harry's and stared, unseeing, at the tasteful paintings that had come, over time, to be hung on the walls of what had once been the Black family mansion.

They sat together on the floor, the shards of their game scattered and mixed with the little brown pieces of Remus' childhood act of desperation. The silence was broken only by the ticking of the clock on the mantle, and it made Harry feel almost trapped. Any amount of amity that they had forged in the dragging summer weeks they had spent together had been severed, and the knowledge of the gap that had risen abruptly between them left a thick lump in Harry's throat and an unpleasant taste in his mouth. "Why?" he finally asked, his voice trembling hoarsely. "Why didn't you tell anyone? Professor Dumbledore, or… or someone?"

A bitter smile flickered across Remus' lips; he slumped back against the edge of the settee and drew his knees protectively up to his chest. "Tell them what? 'It was Professor Pioden in the bedroom with little Remus Lupin, now arrest the culprit and you win the game?'" He gave the Cluedo board a fond, faraway look as he braced one hand against the floor, running his fingers idly through the thick shag of the carpet, and massaged the bridge of his nose with the other. "I don't think you really understand," he sighed. "The world was… different then, of course, and people didn't generally think that sort of thing could really happen to little boys." His lips twitched sardonically, but his eyes remained frozen in a glare of what seemed to Harry to be extremely intense anger; it was not an emotion he'd frequently seen on Remus' face, if he'd ever seen it at all. "Most people would have assumed I was—please pardon the pun—'crying wolf.'"

"Well… but even so, couldn't you have—?"

Remus gave a little growl of frustration that made the hairs on Harry's forearms stand on end. "Do you have _any_ idea how hard it is to find someone willing to educate a child who is a werewolf?" Harry shook his head carefully, acutely aware that Remus' fists were clenched so tightly the cords of muscles and tendons were raised and visible beneath the thin layers of flesh covering them. "It is… difficult. And expensive. And we were all so glad to have found Pioden; he seemed absolutely perfect and we got along splendidly…" His voice became very soft. "A little too splendidly, I suppose." Harry said nothing in response to this, instead watching with some trepidation as Remus sighed heavily and raked his fingers through his hair, pushing it away from his face, and held his head as if in pain. "But, you see, I wanted so badly to go to Hogwarts," his voice became slightly plaintive and wavering under the strain of this difficult exposition. "I wanted to have a life and that was my only option. It seemed that if I jeopardized that in any way…" He bit his lower lip and shook his head sharply. "No, no, I really shouldn't be telling you this…"

Harry began to inch closer to where his former professor sat, all the while trying to work out exactly how all of this new and startling knowledge affected his own perception of Remus Lupin. "How long?" He asked gently as he settled down next to the man whom he had previously regarded as a somewhat distant authority figure, makeshift guardian, and friend.

"We hired him just before I turned seven," Remus answered dully after a moment of anticipatory silence. "He stayed until I was… oh, I must have been nearly ten when he left." He gave Harry a sidelong glance. "And, yes, it did continue. Right up until the day he packed his bags."

"That's a long time," Harry answered with forced neutrality. Remus lifted his shoulders noncommittally, but did not respond. Harry tried again. "It wasn't your fault, you know." He reached up and gingerly touched Remus' arm. "I mean…"

Remus didn't strike him, exactly, or move away; whatever he had done, he had done it fast, and Harry was left with his mind reeling slightly with what amounted to a warning from a tamed animal that had been wounded and did not wish to be helped by its masters. "I'm sorry, Harry," Remus whispered, holding one of his hands up in a gesture that clearly meant 'stop.' "I would prefer… if you didn't touch me right now."

Things clicked into place, and Harry wondered how he could have been such an idiot. "Oh," he breathed, tugging anxiously at a stray lock of hair. "God, I'm really sorry…"

"It's all right." Remus' hand relaxed dismissively. "It's natural to want to comfort someone that way."

"Even so…"

"Look, Harry," Remus' voice became both gentle and firm, once again in control. "I don't think this is something that I want to continue to discuss with you. I don't even think we _should_ discuss it." He hesitated slightly. "It's not something I expect you to be able to understand completely or… or react to healthily, and I just feel—"

"I _could_ understand it, though," Harry interrupted excitedly; his confidence in this statement withering beneath Remus' focused, curious stare. "I could… if you'd let me use Legilimency…"

"Absolutely not."

"Look, I'm not even that good at it. Just ask Snape." He rocked back on his heels, wheedling quietly. "So I'd only be able to pick up what you pretty much wanted me to pick up, and then I'm sure I'd understand a bit better." _And then everything will be okay_, he thought but did not say out loud.

"And what makes you think that I really want you to understand any of it?" Remus asked, his voice pitched low and slightly dangerous. Harry thought quickly, aware that he was treading in hazardously choppy emotional waters.

"I think… I think that you do want someone to understand. Don't you?" Remus' expression remained stoic. "And… and perhaps it would be easier for you not to have to say any of it out loud, just let someone else pick it all up without you even saying a word. Besides," Harry paused somewhat ruefully. "You aren't the only one to have had a really lousy childhood, you know."

For a moment, Harry's final tactic seemed to have driven Remus away and cemented his refusal. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, steeling himself for a blunt, inarguable rejection, and so was taken by complete surprise when Remus released a shaky sigh and a breathy answer. "I suppose… yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes." Remus' voice became firmer. "I'll let you, Harry." Worry flickered briefly over his sharp features. "But… but not for too long."

"Of course not," Harry said, trying to keep his own nerves under tight control. "Tell me as soon as you've had enough, all right?"

Remus lifted his eyes to meet Harry's straight on. "All right." Both settled against the reassuringly solid base of the sofa, shifting their positions so that they could be face to face without discomfort.

Tentatively, Harry reached one hand up to touch Remus' cheek; Remus flinched, but did not look away. "I'm sorry," Harry whispered, "It's just that I'm _really_ not very good at this, and it works better if I'm…"

"I understand."

"Okay." Harry swallowed heavily, blinking several times before focusing upon his own reflection mirrored in the dark circles of Remus' pupils. "_Legilimens_."

The inside of a person's mind bore absolutely no resemblance to an open book, and that was what worried Harry most about his attempts to practice Legilimency on others. He often wished that memories would come equipped with clear indexes, so that he could quickly find whatever it was that he had come for and be on his way. It was unpleasant to have the contents of one's consciousness picked over by an amateur intruder, but it was often far, far worse to be the one intruding.

He had been sure that he would have had to hunt and pry through the high-hedged labyrinth of Remus' subconscious to find what he was seeking, and was taken aback by how accessible and raw and crudely painful the memories were. Images reeled through his mind with so much force it felt as if they had been thrown, fragments of thoughts and feelings and sensations surged within his own spectrum of awareness. They were clearly a child's memories, bright and emphatic and curiously simple. Harry tried his best to relax and let them come to him.

Here, _a dead bird on the ground; small, white hands reach down and pull the corpse from the morning's frost with a dull ripping sound._

Here, _a long, thin man with dark hair and a slight nervous stutter crouches down and places his hand on my_—on his—_on my shoulder._

Here, _a voice in the bedroom, soft and wheedling; the tall man is back, illuminated from below by the dim glow of a nightlight and gently stroking his bony fingers through my—_through Remus'_—through my hair._

Here, _the sensation of being thrust against, tangled in warm blankets and the limbs of another, far larger human being. Of being cradled and caressed almost roughly, not painful but not comfortable, and far from even slightly pleasant. It is routine, more rote than spontaneity, more annoyance than outright trauma._

Here, _in the bathtub, warm water licking at the insides of smooth, thin thighs; hands reach down there, down between, and there is a spark of weightless pleasure followed by the heaviest of guilts._

Here, _a cage large enough for a human being, its door hanging opening in the first rays of early morning, iron bars dully reflecting the dawn. My hands—_his hands, Remus' hands_—my hands are torn and bloody and someone strokes my—_but not mine_—my back as the first horrible sounds of retching begin._

Here, _a small grave for an anonymous bird; a long shadow watches the services solemnly and aids in constructing a small cross from collected twigs._

And everywhere, everywhere there is uncertainty and trepidation and neediness. It mingles with sudden bright flashes of hatred and resentment and fear. Loud bursts of sound are rows, as best as Harry can understand, and the tingles of nauseating satisfaction from an older mind no less immature are the beginnings of a true sexual awakening that has been repressed. Once he had sorted through the more attention-grabbing sensations, he could feel a very quiet and hidden emotion sublimating beneath every memory and every perception of the present moment. He'd felt it before in others, even without Legilimency, but it had never been so malformed, so stunted, or so focused. Mentally, he began to tug on it, to try to bring it closer to the point where he could examine it more closely.

His hand was pushed from Remus' face. "Enough, Harry." They had broken eye contact; Harry blinked and watched as Remus rolled his stiff shoulders and turned his head sharply to one side to elicit a loud 'crack!'

"You're afraid you'll hurt me," Harry blurted out the conclusion his slowly turning gears of thought had come to without realizing. "You think… you think you'll do to me what he did to you…" Remus didn't answer immediately, but kept his face turned stubbornly away. Harry leaned forward, a nervous flush creeping across his cheeks and drops of sweat inching down the back of his neck and soaking the collar of his t-shirt. "You don't… I mean, you can't honestly thinking loving someone means you're going to hurt them. Can you?"

Remus snorted derisively. "I'm not naïve, Harry."

"Yeah? Well, I'm not seven years old."

"… point taken." Remus shrugged wearily. "But it's not as big a deal as it might seem right now, Harry."

This statement made Harry pause with frank bewilderment. "It… isn't?" He gave his head a sharp shake, trying to clear the fog and confusion that tended to settle in after intense usage of Legilimency. Through the grey mist that threatened to eclipse his vision, he tried to recall what he'd read or seen on the telly about child abuse. "Look, he forced you, manipulated you, took away your control for _years_… and it's not a big deal?"

Remus' sudden, hollow laugh made Harry jump slightly with surprise. "Control? I lose control of my body twelve times a year already. Everything else tends to pale in comparison." He eased into a sloppy, unassuming slouch, drawing one knee up close to his chest to fold his arms possessively over it and stretching his other leg out in front of him. With a curious peripheral glance in Harry's direction, he sighed and rested his chin on his forearms. "No, I'm more concerned that… that I'm unable to, er, 'modulate' my own feelings." His gaze flickered unsteadily over the panorama of the sitting room. "For you," he added lamely. "My feelings for you."

Harry hesitated. "But… but you're…:"

"I _was_ your professor, yes, and a friend of your father's." He shrugged helplessly. "Now I am neither, and we've just become two people who happen to haunt the same spaces." The grandfather clock in the outer hall began to strike three o'clock. "For now," Remus added darkly.

"I felt…" Slowly, and with much trepidation, Harry shifted closer to Remus and sat back, imitating his position. Their upper arms brushed slightly. "I felt, when I was—" He lifted his hand as if to touch Remus' face again, but pulled back before making contact. "It was like… silvery-grey and fierce and sounded like… like bells jangling, I guess." Thoughtfully, he bit his lower-lip. "It's hard to describe emotions the way you sense them with Legilimency. But usually, well, 'love' is red and warm and… and it surrounds you, you know, with this thumping sound like a heartbeat." He took a deep breath. "But this silver thing, it was love too, in its own way. And it seemed like…" He turned his face to Remus with an expression of knowledge that was far too old for his young face. "Do you love me?"

Remus' answer hissed from between his lips as he exhaled. "Yes." He choked back a laugh. "Precocious brat," he said fondly, meeting Harry's interested eyes with an expression of good-natured recalcitrance. "You were never supposed to know, not really." Harry shrugged.

"Can I kiss you?" He asked with the blunt directness that is common to teenage boys. Remus' spine stiffened slightly at the request.

"I… don't think so, Harry," He smiled apologetically. "Not today."

"All right," Harry replied amicably, and Remus' shoulders sagged visibly with their relaxation. "Remus?"

"Yes?"

"I think…" Harry's voice dropped to a whisper. "I think I love you too."

Remus froze. "Oh?" He asked. "Do you?" Harry nodded, thinking about how it had felt the past several weeks, living in the deposed Black family's expansive home with Remus, each quietly and shyly orbiting the other. He thought about the Patronus lessons Remus had given him in his third year and remembered wanting to impress his mild-mannered professor as well as protect him. He thought about how it had felt to be inside Remus' mind and memories—how the force and concentration of his love had been so tight and restrained, but real and almost overwhelming in its intensity—and nodded again, slowly and thoughtfully.

"Yes. And… and I'll never hurt you."

"No," Remus pursed his lips, "Of course you won't."

"And you'll never hurt me." Remus looked up into Harry's trusting eyes.

"No," he said with the sudden firmness of conviction, "Not ever."

"And everything will be all right." Harry sighed softly and rested his cheek very lightly on Remus' bony shoulder.

Remus raised his eyebrows. "That would be… nice." He patted Harry awkwardly on the head with the air of someone who is self-consciously aware that he is not good at such displays of affection. They fell silent for several minutes, their chaste tableau comforting in the face of the yawning maw of future possibilities.

"I felt something else too," Harry said slyly, looking up at Remus from beneath the mussed fringe of his bangs.

"Oh?" Remus set his lips in a grim line. "And what was that?"

"Well," Harry examined the nails of one hand with false nonchalance. "I know that it was Mrs. White in the study with the revolver, for one…" He looked up at Remus sheepishly. "Sorry," he grinned. "I couldn't help myself."

Remus stood and walked slowly across the room to where they'd left the in-progress game, treading upon several scraps of the torn parchment without batting an eye. He crouched down next to the board and picked up the envelope containing the solution, tipping the contents into his palm. Conscientiously, he laid each card down in the center of the board. Mrs. White. Study. Revolver. He looked back over his shoulder at Harry and returned the smile.

"Yes," he said evenly, letting the envelope fall from his fingers. "You're absolutely right."


End file.
